Cursed to me as the gates of Hades is the person who hides one thing in their heart and speaks another.

It was dark.

This was simply how Itachi always preferred to open his illusions. A complete void, empty of any of the traditional senses. Was it to intimidate his opponent? Was it to collect his thoughts and center himself on a vision appropriate enough for whatever situation was at hand? Was it perhaps even simple melodramatics? Even he was not quite sure, but he would never admit such a thing; he was one of the coldest killers in history, and had to act the part.

As usual, he took a moment to reflect on what brought him into this current Tsukuyomi. He tried to be as reverent as possible to his Sharingan eyes, using them only when necessary and doing his best to understand that their power was more a gift than a talent. It was only right to think back on the circumstances, each so varied and nuanced.

The Five-Tails was the first of the beasts to be captured by the Akatsuki. It was largely thanks to the talents of Kisame and Sakura both, and although Itachi had needed to subdue the beast into paralysis so his partners could swoop in with ease, he was grateful that he did not have to carry too much of the load. Upon their return to their base of operations, some of their peers—particularly the already outspoken ones like Hidan and Deidara—had their doubts that the technique Pein spoke of would even work. They'd taken their places with relative immediateness, and it seemed the boss was as wary of Sakura as he should've been. He'd instructed Itachi to remove his ring and give it to her, who would be required to definitively prove her loyalty by participating in the ritual directly while Itachi monitored the situation from any threats, both outside and in.

He himself had been suspicious from the start that Sakura would intervene in the ritual. Part of him, deep down at least, had even hoped she would simply run off; it was unfortunate that her talents and mutations at the hand of Orochimaru had attracted the attentions of the Akatsuki, because the organization did not suit her at all.

What he knew of her character from his limited time spying in on Konoha seemed amplified and transformed that she'd spent years with someone who dedicated time to honing her skills. Through the eyes and ears of his crows he'd witnessed her fury with Sasuke's inaction in the Forest of Death, seen how she'd taken charge despite her obvious terror when her teammates had both been knocked unconscious. Back then, she'd had a selfish aura and her trepidation had been great. He himself paid her very little mind, despite her proximity to his brother. But her time spent with a sannin had sharpened her mind along with her talents, and he wondered just what it was that spurred her to go to such great lengths in the first place.

As for the extraction ritual, it'd been a long stretch of time punctuated only by the jinchuuriki's pained screams and labored breaths. The instant Sakura had broken her portion of the jutsu and leapt into the ring, he could feel Pein's eyes on him. As the wielder of a Sharingan, he was called upon for quick and easy subduing of unruly people, Akatsuki members included. Of course, he would obey this silent order from Pein—but not before he had a chance to see what it was Sakura would do. His curiosity was simply far too great.

Something in the back of his head told him that the selfishness of her preteen years had grown so great that it'd morphed into selflessness, and he could feel the general mood in the room shift as her chakra flared to life. The curse seal on her wrist spun in activation, her skin turning the color of stone. The two small circles on her forehead glowed with the force of her power, growing in size until they were one circle cutting through the features of her face. He raised a brow quizzically, watching her hair shoot in length down her back, lightening in color.

She'd laid her hands upon the host, and a healing chakra the likes of which he'd never seen flowed from her core and straight into the man. She fully intended to save his life, did she? He wondered if her cursed form would be enough, or if she would die from chakra exhaustion within the hour.

Thick lines, so deeply blue they were closer to purple, streaked down from the circle on her face. They trailed down her neck, disappearing beneath her billowing red sleeves and reappearing on her forearms and hands. If he'd been surprised by her chakra before, something about it had completely transformed now. She'd tapped into her reserves, which were much more massive than he'd realized, and his curiosity burned even hotter, itching to know just what sent her to Orochimaru when all he knew of Lady Tsunade seemed much more in line with her skillset—if she could manage a yin seal without the Hokage's tutelage, she was talented indeed.

His intrigue had been piqued, and he wanted so badly to see whether she would succeed. But he knew that Pein expected him to act, and if in saving the host's life the extraction technique failed...Itachi couldn't very well accomplish his goals with the Akatsuki as his enemy.

It was easy as it ever was to get anyone to look into his eyes. He shifted his weight only slightly in her direction, and from across the room her eyes—the whites of which had gone black, that springtime green turned yellow—met his.

Her brows were furrowed and despite her monstrous appearance, she was crying.

But it was too late for much sympathy by then, and here they were suspended in the quiet darkness of his mind before he decided how best to incapacitate her. He'd locked onto Sakura's mind, feeling her desperate struggle to stay alive through her exhaustion and her more desperate struggle to keep the jinchuuriki alive, and zeroed in on that emotion.

There in his conjured darkness the first and most overwhelming thing he felt was that complete and utter desperation. It had been quite some time since he'd felt anything so strongly, but most of the more intense things he felt these days were from the minds of other people. She wanted to win, to succeed—to save the life of the man named Han, because she believed in her nindo so fully and wholly that it tugged on his own latent ambition. Healing chakra radiated from her as if she were a fountain of it, the energy suspended there for all of her efforts.

In the very moment before he began to weave a scenario meant to trap her, he heard in his ear a faint voice, light and with an air like the hissing of a snake.

I know you want me to be afraid.

Sakura was just passing beneath the main gates of the Uchiha compound when Itachi had finally made it home from a long day at ANBU headquarters. He felt her approach before he'd seen her, for she was emitting that same healing aura that had so enveloped her in reality. As she came into view he cocked his head just slightly in a false curiosity.

In a Tsukuyomi that did not involve pain and torture, a bit more care had to be given to the smaller details. Sakura was in pain enough both physically and emotionally, and so subduing her gently was the goal. It had been some time since he'd captured a woman—well, a girl—here, and he pushed against the memory of the last one. It was a relief that he didn't need to make Sakura see an entire lifetime. One night together should be enough.

"Oh, Itachi-sempai," she said then. Her two yin seals burned harshly above her still-flushed face, evidence of the spar he'd made her think she'd just had with Sasuke and the Nine-Tails' boy. She gave a polite—if not a bit curt—bow, her smile small. "Are you well?"

"Indeed I am," he answered, returning her smile. "Are you on your way home?"

"Yep."

"So late?"

Her smile became a smirk in her slight annoyance, and she shut her eyes. "I keep telling you, I'm fine."

"And I keep telling you," he said, closing the distance between them, "that Konoha is more dangerous than you think. When you make ANBU, you'll understand. Let me walk you home."

It had become a ritual at this point for Team 7's spars to run late into the night. His family's neighbors had begun to complain to his father of the noise, but the old man couldn't be bothered to really do anything about it. In this reality, he'd gotten his wish that both of his sons would find strength and success in spades.

Another difference to this reality was that Itachi had always insisted upon walking Sakura home whenever their paths crossed at this time of night. It flustered her in a way he thought was funny, and to make the illusion feel as real as possible he called upon the memory of tugging at her bare ankle to pull her into the lake. A light touch here, his incessant politeness grating on her nerves there, compliments when he felt they were most appropriate...

"Like I could ever do that," she was saying. They'd taken to the street, walking side by side as they passed slowly beneath the streetlights.

"Just say the word, and I'll recommend you." In the real world, he had seen her in active combat only the one time—but since they met he'd seen evidence of her strength in her toned muscle, the chakra she kept at the tips of her fingers for easy genjutsu application, the imperfect yin seal indicating great stamina, and her vast knowledge in medicines, poisons, and how best to take care of his mystery illness. And whatever it was he was stopping her from doing to the Five-Tails' host would be coveted by any hidden village, surely.

He was sure that she, at heart, was no traitor, but he knew all too well the grudges the villages kept. Even being a prime candidate for ANBU, the truth was that her chances of being welcome back to the Leaf with open arms were slim to none.

A stinging pain shot through his head and behind his eyes. He nearly sucked his teeth in aggravation that his eyes were failing him so quickly in relation to other Uchiha. He ignored it as best he could, but the healing energy radiating from her became tantalizing in an instant.

"Too easy," she said, waving her hand as if to fan away the notion. "I wanna actually work for it, not just have a captain get me in."

"A recommendation is required," he pointed out, watching her from the corner of his eye. "But I do understand. Your Naruto's insistence upon hard work is so infectious that even my brother and Kakashi-sempai are working harder these days." She'd sighed at the mention of Naruto's name, and he huffed a small laugh through his nose. "How was this afternoon's spar?"

Her thoughts were still with her teammate and the slight jealousy he'd conjured there for her. "He's all power, no control. Really, I'd make the better successor for Lady Fifth!"

The pain behind his eyes began to throb now, shooting down through his jaw. At the ache he fought a slight wince, carrying on. "She still refuses to see you?"

Sakura stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes. "Something about my time spent with Orochimaru. I try not to think of what kind of sordid past they might've had for her to feel so strongly about him." A slight shiver came over her, and though he knew full well it was in mock-disgust, he slid his arm around her waist and tugged her into his side as if to warm a chill.

The truth of it was, the pain that was conjuring the powers of the Sharingan had grown worse and worse over the years. The moment his fingers brushed the small bit of her exposed midriff, the edge of that agony eased.

"Oi, oi," she chided teasingly. "You're handsy lately, aren't you?"

He hummed contentedly, offering nothing more in response. In silence they walked along the barely-lit backstreets, listening to the buzzing of the early autumn insects and the quiet sounds of their synchronized footsteps on the earth beneath them. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and then she spoke.

"Sasuke-kun will kill you, you know."

Itachi froze, stopping dead in his tracks to hear such a thing. Sakura, too, stopped, doubtless feeling the strange pulling sensation that was his momentary loss of control of the genjutsu. But she just turned and watched him curiously, the look on her face concerned and sweet.

"You know," she continued, "if he finds out we've been sneaking off like this."

Even with her clarification, it would take a few moments before his frenzied nerves calmed or for the icy hint in his blood to warm. Oh.

"Is it really sneaking off?" he wondered aloud, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he watched her. He hadn't at all been prepared for her to say something like that, and he subtly shifted the story of the illusion. "You two broke up months ago."

She shrugged, smirking slightly. "Sure, but cool as he may be, you're the cooler older brother—even he'd be jealous to know you're walking his ex home."

At that his own smirk was lighthearted. "I'm 'cool,' am I?"

"Oh, shut up," she said. "You are and you know it. That's why you have so many secret admirers."

He paused, pretending that he was not intrigued by this line of thinking he'd uncovered within her. Here in his reality her psyche was his to dissect, and he took her again by the waist there in the quiet, empty street, telling himself all the while that it was to help the pain behind his aching eyes. A small sound of surprise escaped her as their chests pressed together, then she clicked her tongue.

"I told you last time, sempai," she protested, looking down at the packed-dirt path as she blushed. "I don't want to get serious with anyone just yet."

"Not asking you any such thing," he murmured into the top of her hair.

"It's always serious with you," she said, prying herself from him gently. "You're not the kind of guy who screws around with people and then leaves. I know you better than that." At least here she thought she did.

A raindrop, fat and cold, fell onto the crown of his head then, and he and Sakura both glanced up. She held out her hands with her palms upturned, and another drop landed on her nose, its tiny splash to her face making her blink and shake her head in surprise. When she smiled, he nearly forgot that this was nothing more than an illusion—for he smiled, too, and widely—and just as the rain began to fall in sheets around them, he took her hand and ran. They laughed, and though this was a world of his own making, the simple purity of his own joy was near to shocking. They darted around street corners, holding their free arms above their heads until they reached a dimly lit alley shielded by an overhang from one of the small shops there.

Their hair and clothes were soaked as they beamed with the effort of the sprint, and the rain pelted onto the wooden overhang in soothing sounds. She pushed her fringe from her flushed face, and the way she looked at him stirred at some strange yearning in him that he hadn't felt in quite some time.

He wanted to be close to her, closer than just holding her at his side or in his arms. It simply must've been because he trapped her at a moment in which she was overflowing with power that her healing presence was so difficult to resist. He bent his head, ducking down and pushing her against the security gate of the shop. Their breaths came heavy in the minuscule space between them, and the cold metal of the chainlink gate stung his fingers as he gripped it on either side of her head. A throb of a different kind pulsed through him, and it was only then that he understood something deeply alarming:

He was lonely.

And just what the hell did that mean? This was unbecoming of a man of his renown and status—but then, he wasn't even truly a man yet, was he? Of course the immature eagerness of his youth, that'd been cut so short by necessity, was still there lying in wait. He fought against it, telling himself deep down that no bonds were worth anything anymore, and it was stupid for him to want this.

But in the Tsukuyomi, the bond was not real. It was safe, and Sakura felt good. It were these simple lines of reasoning that led him, so easily, to give in.

Their parted lips were ghosting over the other's already, and despite his control over this world, he could not tell which of them had actually kissed the other first. Her mouth was soft and warm, but the sensation of being so close to another person after so many years of stilted arm's-lengths was staggering in its awkwardness. He pushed, the gate behind them rattling as their chests touched again. Somewhere below him her hips rolled, only the slightest of movements, into his; her boldness shouldn't have surprised him, really. He kissed her as deeply as he dared, their mouths opening wider as their confidence grew with each one, his migraine disappearing completely to be so near her healing presence. Though he'd never kissed anyone except in his illusions, he was sure that—like most things in his life—he had a natural talent for it. What worried him, though, was whether she'd been with anyone before. The illusion had to be convincing, after all.

He pulled back just a fraction of an inch, cracking open his eyes to look at her through his hooded gaze.

"Is this all right?" Surely such a question would get him the response needed to gauge her level of expertise.

"Yeah, but..." She looked down shyly at the ground as he waited. "Is this the life you think I want?" she asked, and he could feel something about her entire being shift. "Or is this the life that you want?"

He flinched, just the slightest of movements, to be so seen. After he'd spent years convincing himself that he was coldblooded, his heart reserved fully for Sasuke, she had the gall to accuse him of something like that...! He felt his face twitch in mounting anger, but he had to collect himself. There was no way she knew yet where she was, and like before, her words must simply have been a coincidence.

He took his hands from the gate and placed them delicately onto her face, his thumb tracing along her bottom lip. Leaning in and cocking his head to the side, he whispered into her ear,

"It's the life we both want, isn't it?"

She shivered in his light grip.

"It—just feels like this is an excuse," she whispered, "for you to be back home. You could've made me see anything, or even nothing. But you chose this."

He said nothing, racking his brain to find the moment she'd realized she was not in the real world.

"Why?" she pressed.

Silence. He sifted through the genjutsu step by step, finding no holes so glaring to've allowed something like this to happen.

"You can still go home," she breathed, her breasts pushing against his collarbone. "I know not all of this is there waiting, but...but Sasuke-kun is. I could—we could go together." Their lips were painfully close to touching again, the rain torrential now around them. "We could all—"

In the recesses of his mind, where his was linked to hers, he knew how she planned to finish that thought. There was a sneer on his face as he pulled back, turning away from her before she could voice it. He could not let her see even a hint of that loneliness, that weakness that he'd so let slip through in kissing her. And besides that, she did not know what it was he'd done, why her unspoken suggestion was impossible.

But when that hissing voice sounded in his mind again, she froze in his arms. He bristled, pushing for chakra and looking out onto the main street from the corner of his eye. There was simply no way that anyone had been able to enter the illusion, or that she had somehow broken free to this extent.

"I don't buy this, ya know."

He turned slowly, facing with an insidious caution this new presence. But that wasn't right, was it? The presence was not new at all, and he realized that he hadn't sensed it before because it shared Sakura's chakra signature exactly. It was shrouded in shadow, but in a strange way that was not from the night sky or the rainy clouds overhead.

His mind was abuzz with the possibilities. It was not unheard of for exceptional opponents to be able to fight back in his Tsukuyomi, but no insurrection was ever any real threat unless it was from another Sharingan user. He hadn't felt her try to cast a jutsu, and he did not think that she'd had time to set anything up before meeting his eyes in the real world. She'd been too preoccupied.

The shape of this second Sakura fit the original, from the way her hair fell just below her ears and her stature, but the way she stood had a roguish defiance like she was some sort of delinquent from a novel. Had she somehow managed to fragment her psyche while under his influence? He narrowed his eyes—of course his vision wasn't what it used to be, but he was sure that this Sakura lacked any facial features at all. And then, when she spoke, a glowing white light appeared on the void of that face, in the shape of characters spelling out uchi-naru.

A manifestation of her inner self, was it? Suddenly her choices made more sense in his head, clicking into a satisfying understanding. Where Lady Tsunade had abandoned the village and nestled comfortably into her vices, Orochimaru had never lost sight of his goal, no matter how twisted it became. Of course he would be the more appealing option for someone with a resolve like Sakura's, if this was how her mind had functioned all this time.

"Let us out," this shadowy Sakura demanded. "She's too nice to tell you straight, but we've got more important things to do than make out with you in your fucked-up little genjutsu."

His laugh was humorless, more of a thing of surprise than anything. So this second Sakura not only had the power to be here in the first place, but speak so coherently without his command. Would the intrigue never cease?

"Pein will kill you if I don't intervene," he said flatly. "Am I correct to assume there's still plenty for which you'd like to live?"

"Could ask the same of you."

"He can't kill me, but it remains in my best interest to stay on his most pleasant side."

"Don't care. Let us out."

No matter how deeply she understood that she was trapped in his illusion, she was not strong enough to break out of it. The healing aura that surrounded her dissipated, replaced by her bubbling anger. He could feel her push against his incorporeal restraints, her struggle futile. That she could move freely inside of it was inconsequential to Itachi, as long as he remained composed enough to control the narrative and the environment. For someone who'd slaughtered his entire family like little more than livestock, composure was among his strong suits.

"I'm talking to you!" His silence had sent her into a fury faster than he could even blink; he could feel the force of it all around him. "What is it you're even trying to do, smartass?"

He scoffed, shutting his eyes briefly and shaking his head as if she were a child. She'd very carefully hidden this part of her personality, it seemed. He couldn't well divulge any of his true intentions, and even if he did, it would take far longer than he cared to stay here. In the real world, hardly ten seconds had passed. He'd succeeded in stopping her already, but the encounter had turned so strange that his mounting curiosity had gotten the better of him.

"Like Kisame, I'm here because my options are limited. I seek peace, and to die by my brother's hand. What is it that you're trying to do?"

"Don't act like you don't know. I'll save Han's life and the rest of the jinchuuriki, too."

"About many things, Pein is misguided. But he is right that peace can't reasonably be achieved without bloodshed. And now that you've acted so recklessly, do you think he will let you anywhere near the next extraction?"

"Don't care," she spat. "I'll fight my way through if I have to."

"And die?"

She tried to lunge at him, but his strength far outweighed hers. He watched as the shadowed Sakura twitched in her paralysis, unable to move even though she wanted to so badly.

He approached the silhouette figure, leaving the real one frozen in place against the small storefront. The rain pelted his head and shoulders as he left the shelter of the overhang, and though he could stop it if he wished, he welcomed the tight, sickening feeling it brought to his lungs. His appearance had reverted back to what he looked like in the present-day, the high collar of his flowing black robe obscuring the lower half of his face.

"You're skilled in genjutsu, more than I realized. But you should've just stayed in your place and given in. There is only pain for those who resist Tsukuyomi."

"You talk about peace like you have any clue how I feel, then threaten me."

He furrowed his brows, his own anger bubbling as the searing pain behind his eyes returned. He took the shadowy Sakura's chin in his hands, pulling it up so he could stare down into that blank face. Up close, he could see faint sweep across her forehead where her browbone lay, the slight curve of her nose, the indents of her angry eyes, and her mouth set in a tight line.

"You have no idea," he muttered in a low voice, "the things I've done in the name of peace. Among them, threatening you ranks low." As he squeezed her chin he could feel her anger finally boil over. "You would do well to remember such a thing."

It was the wrong move, to let himself feel anything. That anger in him at her innocent insistence that peace could be achieved with total pacifism cracked his concentration just enough for Sakura, whose skill in resisting genjutsu was far greater than he'd thought even mere seconds ago, to notice. All of her pent-up kinetic energy unleashed, she lunged. They fell to the ground, and the very same moment she wrapped his throat in her ink-black hands, he brought the illusion to a close.

"You shut up," she snarled. "You and Sasuke think you're so much better than everyone. When I get out of here, I will fuck you up, and..." Her breaths had come heavier and heavier, growing drowsy. "And I'll—save...him. Naruto."

When she slumped, she vanished entirely. Behind him he was aware as the other Sakura—he dared not guess which of the two she considered to be her true self—similarly fell to the ground. He sat and stood, dusting the front of his cloak as he turned to study her for just a moment longer. Even now she fought the sleep he was forcing upon her, her eyes blinking slowly and her breaths deep. She was a mystery, truly, far more than he'd ever have given her credit for if this hadn't happened.

But it was no matter anymore, really. Back in the Akatsuki's base, she was already fallen onto the floor, the extraction technique complete, the host dead. The place in which she was presently conscious, barely so, was his reality, and as he closed his eyes he felt a hint of sadness that she would not remember any of her valiant effort against him at all when she woke. This was yet another weight he'd have to carry on his own, yet another way he would be suspended within the limbo of his own loneliness.

He would pretend, though, that he remembered little of it either, but as he ended the illusion and approached her unconscious body in the Akatsuki's base, he thought of their lips ghosting each other's and her childish, unspoken words echoing over and over in his mind.

We could all—be a family together.

Stupid.